September 15, 2015:
Russian Flights Over Iraq and Iran Escalate Tension With U.S.
By Eric Schmitt and Michael R. Gordon
SEPT. 14, 2015
COMMENT: Tensions continue to rise. Seems as if Putin continues to push. The relationship with the west continues to deteriorate. |
WASHINGTON — Russia is using an air corridor over Iraq and Iran to fly military equipment and personnel to a new air hub in Syria, openly defying American efforts to block the shipments and significantly increasing tensions with Washington.
American officials disclosed Sunday that at least seven giant Russian Condor transport planes had taken off from a base in southern Russia during the past week to ferry equipment to Syria, all passing through Iranian and Iraqi airspace.
Their destination was an airfield south of Latakia, Syria, which could become the most significant new Russian military foothold in the Middle East in decades, American officials said.
The Obama administration initially hoped it had hampered the Russian effort to move military equipment and personnel into Syria when Bulgaria, a NATO member, announced it would close its airspace to the flights. But Russia quickly began channeling its flights over Iraq and Iran, which Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, said on Sunday would continue despite American objections.
Click on Link:
Stunning Video Emerges As 1000s Flee California Wildfires After Governor Calls 'State Of Emergency'
Published: September 14, 2015
COMMENT: Four years of drought, hundreds of fires, homes lost, lives disrupted, uncertain futures. Terrible situation. |
As if the drought was not disheartening enough, wildfires are now raging across many parts of northen and southern California focing Governor Jerry Brown to call a state of emergency. Nowhere is the crisis more evident than in NorCal's Lake County where, as The LA Times reports, the untamed wildfire forced chaotic evacuations, is consuming hundreds of homes and businesses, and has outrun the efforts of a growing army of firefighters to corral it. However, as the following clip shows, one car-driver ran the gauntlet and managed to outrun "the worst tragedy Lake County has ever seen," in a scene right out of a disaster movie.
A swiftly spreading wildfire destroyed hundreds of homes and forced thousands of residents to flee as it roared unchecked through the northern California village of Middletown and nearby communities, fire officials said on Sunday.
The so-called Valley Fire, now ranked as the most destructive among scores of blazes that have ravaged the drought-stricken Western United States this summer, came amid what California fire officials described as "unheard of fire behavior" this season.
Click on Link:
Merkel orders Cameron to support plans for EU ARMY in exchange for EU negotiation talks
Published: September 14, 2015
COMMENT: The EU is beginning to show its true colors. |
The Prime Minister is to be told that Germany would support his bid to renegotiate the terms of Britain’s EU membership if he accepts moves to create a European military force.
Critics fear the development could marginalise Britain within Nato and further undermine the “special relationship” with America.
Robert Oxley, of the Eurosceptic pressure group Business for Britain, said: “This is further proof that inevitable EU integration means that the UK will lose control of its destiny and, possibly, its military strength inside an unreformed EU.
“What was once a zone designed for free trade has become a political, economic and potentially a military body.”
Click on Link:
http://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/604964/David-Cameron-under-fire-EU-army-stance
Pope Francis Says the Devil Is Keeping Evangelicals and Catholics Divided: 'We Are One; It Is He Who's Persecuting Christians Today'
Wed, May 27, 2015
COMMENT: He obviously intends that this New World Order will include a One World Church. |
Pope Francis has said that it's the devil himself who keeps evangelicals, Catholics, and Christians from other denominations divided, and rejected the notion that it's heretical to believe that all Christians are one.
"Division is the work of the 'Father of Lies,' 'the Father of Discord,' who does everything possible to keep us divided," Francis said in a video message to a gathering sponsored by the John 17 Movement, according to Catholic Herald.
"I feel like saying something that may sound controversial, or even heretical, perhaps," he added. "But there is someone who 'knows' that, despite our differences, we are one. It is he who is persecuting us. It is he who is persecuting Christians today, he who is anointing us with (the blood of) martyrdom."
Francis added that the devil "knows that Christians are disciples of Christ, that they are one, that they are brothers! He doesn't care if they are Evangelicals or Orthodox, Lutherans, Catholics or Apostolic… he doesn't care! They are Christians."
Click on Link:
The Pope’s great Evangelical gamble
Can Francis overcome decades of antagonism between Catholics and Evangelicals?
By Luke Coppen posted Thursday, 23 Jul 2015
COMMENT: Notice the first sentence of the second paragraph: “Francis is convinced that the Reformation is already over.” |
Somewhere in Pope Francis’s office is a document that could alter the course of Christian history. It declares an end to hostilities between Catholics and Evangelicals and says the two traditions are now “united in mission because we are declaring the same Gospel”. The Holy Father is thinking of signing the text in 2017, the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, alongside Evangelical leaders representing roughly one in four Christians in the world today.
Francis is convinced that the Reformation is already over. He believes it ended in 1999, the year the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation issued a joint declaration on justification, the doctrine at the heart of Luther’s protest.
In 1999, after extensive talks, Catholic and Lutheran theologians concluded that the two communions now shared “a common understanding of our justification by God’s grace through faith in Christ”.
In 2006, the World Methodist Council also adopted the declaration. But not one major leader of “born-again” Christians has publicly endorsed the text. So most of the world’s 600 million Evangelicals don’t realise that the protest is over. From the shantytowns of São Paulo to the high-rises of Seoul, Evangelicals and Catholics still eye each other warily.
Click on Link:
http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/issues/july-24th-2015/the-popes-great-evangelical-gamble/
